A simple and harmless exercise to gauge the relevance of the visual arts sector in Italian public discourse: open the newspapers and count how many articles have been devoted to the appointment of Francesco Bonami as artistic director of…
Read more
Exhibition reviews Ancient art Five hundred Florence Mannerism Pontormo Quirinal Stables Rome Tuscany
To his contemporaries, the frescoes that Pontormo painted in Florence on the walls of the choir of San Lorenzo must have seemed an extreme, laborious expression of defiance— that “negative Sistine Chapel,” as Luciano Berti had…
Read more
Books Ancient art Books Renaissance
I fear that, at this point, it is no longer possible to identify the external agent responsible for Aldo Cazzullo’s nucleotide recombination. The mutagen that was able to transform this staid and routine columnist for the…
Read more
Opinions Cultural journalism Vittorio Sgarbi
I haven’t started—and I won’t start—keeping track of the media attacks accused of having torn down Vittorio Sgarbi’s public image: Ermes Antonucci has already taken care of that in *Il Foglio*, where he wrote an…
Read more
Exhibition reviews Bertozzi & Casoni Contemporary art Milan
The ceiling of the Bagatti Valsecchi library is right before our eyes: if you try to lift your chin, you’ll see the frescoes and grotesques in their proper places, motionless, exactly where they’re supposed to be. Then, as you…
Read more
News Focus BIAF 2026 Florence International Antiques Biennale
The direction changes, the secretary changes, some of the antique dealers change, but the Florence International Antiques Biennale remains the same: Palazzo Corsini is still there, on the banks of the Arno, waiting for the dozens of…
Read more
Exhibition reviews Magic realism Modern Art Tuscany Twentieth Century
These are silences that permeate the Maremma countryside, the result of a mind that viewed those fields, those pine trees, those rivulets, and those marshes as one might view a gold ground, a painting by Piero della Francesca, or a…
Read more
Opinions Ancient art Brands Federico Barocci Five hundred Renaissance Urbino
If one were to go by the headlines, it would seem there are no major doubts regarding the authenticity of the *Portrait of a Young Man*, which was presented with some grand ceremony in the halls of the Ducal Palace in Urbino—which are…
Read more
